Hey Grandma!

I spent the majority of the day baking.  A couple of times a year, my mother, my sister, and I make cinnamon rolls.  It was my grandmother's claim to fame.  She was my mother's mother and she died a few years ago at the age of 94.  It never fails that when we bake the cinnamon rolls, we talk about Grandma. It's nice to remember.  Grandma usually made a big batch when she would come for a visit and sneak my sister and I tastes of the dough.  We loved to eat it raw but my mother seemed to think this was bad for us.  Grandma would wait until Mom's back was turned and gives us a bite.  She could be a strict woman, but in those moments, she was on our side.  It is one of my favorite memories of her

I made good progress on C-Lou's afghan both before and after the baking adventure.  It's slate blue and dark brown (Red Heart TLC paradise blue and dark brown) per her request.  I gave her a "gift certificate" for her birthday a few weeks ago and this is what she asked for.  She picked the colors, but gave me cart blanche when it came to the pattern.  It's a crocheted ripple afghan, but it's worked in the round.  I've made this particular pattern before which is something I don't usually do (more on that another time) but when she told me that she wanted an afghan, this was the pattern that popped into my head.  I couldn't shake it loose.  I thought of about fifteen other patterns to do, but I kept coming back to this one.  In the end, I decided that was an omen and purchased the right amount to complete this project.


Remember when I said yarn was forgiving?  I was reminded of that once again today.  I messed up and did the wrong round.  It wasn't until I got all the way to the end of the round that I realized I had jumped ahead in the pattern.  I stared at the book.  I stared at the afghan.  I counted the rounds again, hoping that I had miscounted.  I had not.  I said some bad words and debated for an extraordinary amount of time whether or not I should rip out the entire round and start over.  I did a few stitches on the new round in attempt to see if I could cover up my mistake.  And as I did so, I realized one important fact:  no one was going to know that it was wrong.  Yarn is forgiving.  It wasn't a huge mistake, the pattern wouldn't suffer.  No one would know there should have been decreases instead of skipped stitches.  Grandma would tell me that only God is perfect.  I left the round as it was and finagled the next round.  It still looks good.  And when it's completed and lying on the back of C-Lou's couch, she's not going to stare at it and say "Those are the wrong stitches right there!"  She will look at it and smile, because she appreciates the time and effort and feeling that goes into making an afghan.  That's why she asked for it in the first place and why she was shocked and pleased and cried just a little bit when I said I would make her one.  And that is the point of it right there.  

My goal is to complete this project within the next week.  I started it Thursday night and it's almost half done.  I think C-Lou has patiently waited long enough for her birthday gift (though she knew up front it would take time) and I want to see it grace the back of her couch.  It's where it belongs, after all.